31 October 2026 will stand out as an unusual day in the history of the United Nations in Africa. It marks both the scheduled departure of the organisation from Somalia and the collapse, for lack of agreement, of the legal framework for its mission in Western Sahara.
In Mogadishu, the United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNTMIS) ceased operations on Saturday, ending more than three decades of UN missions devoted to peacebuilding, state-building and governance. The closure came as no surprise. UNTMIS took over from UNSOM on 1 November 2024 under Resolution 2753, for a two-year transition split into two phases. The Somali government itself had initially asked in May 2024 for the mandate to end, before amending its request to propose this transition period. Resolution 2809, adopted unanimously in late 2025, then set the closure date in stone while extending the African Union mission (AUSSOM) until 31 December 2026. The remaining tasks now fall to Somalia’s federal institutions and to the UN agencies already working in the country. In a statement issued on 26 October, António Guterres praised the resilience of the Somali people and the progress achieved. The country now prepares on its own for the presidential and parliamentary elections planned for 2027, against a backdrop of persistent threats from al-Shabaab.
The picture is entirely different in Western Sahara. On Friday 30 October, the Security Council considered two competing texts and adopted neither. The US draft, strongly favourable to Rabat, made Morocco’s autonomy plan the basis for negotiations and renamed the mission MINUSO from 1 November, dropping the word “referendum” from its title. Despite eleven votes in favour, it was blocked by a Russian veto, with China, Pakistan and Somalia abstaining. Moscow had circulated its own text that same morning, limited to a one-year extension of the mission under its current name. That counter-draft won only three votes, from China, Somalia and Russia, against a US no vote and eleven abstentions. Having fallen short of the nine-vote threshold, it was doomed in any case, with the American vote serving mainly as a political signal.
The outcome is unprecedented: MINURSO, established in 1991 by Resolution 690, has not been renewed. Its mandate expires at midnight tonight. Resolution 2797, adopted in 2025, nonetheless remains a Security Council decision, which is already fuelling diverging interpretations in Rabat and Algiers. A year ago, Russia merely abstained on that text. The question now is whether the fifteen members can reach a compromise to restore a UN presence on the ground, or whether this vacuum will pave the way for a deeper overhaul of the mission.